Bethesda has surprised one and all this afternoon with the shock announcement of a brand new Fallout title for PC and next-consoles next year.

Dubbed Fallout: New Vegas, the game is not a sequel to last year’s massively popular Fallout 3, and will instead be a standalone title 'set in the Fallout universe'.

It will, however, be based on the Fallout 3 engine, and no doubt be very familiar to those accustomed to the recent post-nuclear outing.

Most interestingly the title is not being developed by Bethesda, and is instead being handled by Obsidian, the studio behind the likes of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Never Winter Nights 2 and Sega’s Alpha Protocol.